Jim of Oblivion
by quaint.camera
Summary: James T. Kirk has nothing left to lose except his life.  He knows it will take nothing short of a miracle to save the day this time.  A miracle . . . or a certain sacrifice.
1. Prologue

_**Jim of Oblivion**_

_Obsession or Loyalty? Madness or persistence? Denial or faith?  
__In the wake of these questions, they all begin to fall.  
Bones. Spock. The crew. His T. Kirk has nothing left to lose except his life.  
He knows it will take nothing short of a miracle to save the day this time.  
A miracle . . . or a certain sacrifice. _

___

* * *

_

_**Prologue**_

"What do you plan to do?"

"Why, I shall test them, of course!"

"In what way? Has life not already tested them?"

"Not sufficiently, no. More tests are required."

"I ask again: of what sort?"

"The ultimate sort. Yes, the ultimate test."

"And what purpose shall this serve, other than pain?"

"They will gain knowledge . . . and if they survive, strength?"

". . . And for us?"

"Freedom. Think of it!"

"You will tell me what you've planned?"

"Yes, presently. There are three of them, so three tests are required."

"What is the nature of their jobs?"

"One is chief of medicine, another both first officer and scientist, and the last the captain of the vessel itself. My plan is simple. They are closely connected. If we draw one of them here, the other two will surely follow. We will plant a seed so strong in the captain of the vessel that he will be drawn to us, so that he will have to defeat the doctor and rescue the First . . . and for the First, a challenge to survive. Their trials, as their beings, shall be intertwined. Three tests within one."

"How shall we draw the First here? What method shall we use, dearest?"

"I must consider it further . . . Soon, we shall act."

"Are we to free the others, too? Surely you aren't thinking only of yourself!"

"I am not sure that they have awakened yet, or that they can be freed. We shall only initiate the event. We shall not interfere. What comes, comes. We have but to wait and see."


	2. Introspection

_**Jim of Oblivion**_

_**Part I: Introspection**_

It's in darkness that he looks the most handsome, like now.

He's sitting up in bed, a row of lights blazing from behind his head as if in some sort of crazy halo, but he feels far from angelic. He was always one to write his own religion, so he doesn't know much about angels, but he's pretty sure they can sleep whenever they want to. Sleep, to him, would be heaven. But he's no angel, so he's up, legs dangling over the edge of the biobed, boots hanging black and silent and still in the air. They are shining in the way things so completely dark do—they give off no light of their own, but reflect so brightly other light that it seems they do. That's how he feels sometimes. That's how he feels now: like he has no light of his own.

Yes, darkness does suit him. And in the darkness he will stay, until he can find the one who truly gives off the light. He is merely a carrier, bolstered by that great light to give off the great appearances. The broad-shouldered build, the dirty-blonde finger of hair curled around the furrowed forehead, hands that do not ask permission to touch, and eyes that could just as easily dance as kill—he didn't choose any of it, but it's what he is.

He has to laugh at that, a little. It's so very like the one he's missing: to inwardly note what truly is, deny it outwardly, and yet claim to follow truth. Of course, it is only truth about himself that Spock denies, and in that way, he's a kind of rebel. A hardheaded, stubborn rebel.

One corner of his mouth yanks up a bitter smile. James Kirk, ultimate hypocrite.

Spock can—_does_—face anything in the universe except himself. And the self is a hard thing to run from. Jim knows. He's been running all his life in his own way, but never once has he affected escape. Running—never finding freedom, never finding happiness.

Spock. The very name itself can't satisfy what comes to mind when he thinks of it, says it, when he pleads any god that is to _please_, let him be alive, at least. Even if he's hurt, let him be alive. That's all I ask. This one thing: that he be alive.

He knows what death is. All too often, he's watched live shrivel away at his very feet and knelt as if his sorrow, like a kiss in a fairy tale, could break the curse and shatter its reality. The words "died in the line of duty" mean everything and nothing to him now. _Nothing_—he's said them too many times, too many times to really feel what they mean anymore. _Everything_—it's the way he wants to die, and, if he's honest, the way that he _will_ die because he knows he will.

Make no mistake—it's not madness. He knows what he feels isn't mad. It's always been there. That most precious gift that makes him unique as a captain: intuition. Or gut, as the good doctor would say. The thing that has saved him so many times in the past, the thing that allows him to practically see through people, so that at any given moment he could enter into their lives and descend on them: friend, father, lover, enemy . . . He could be all of those things and anything else you can think of.

Most often, though, he is the lover. It is with grace, ease, almost submissiveness that he steps into the role and becomes what it is the woman needs. Protector, comforter—whatever, it doesn't matter. He becomes it, for a little while, until it ends one way or another. And it always ends. It never lasts. Only one woman for him, only one he's loyal to: _Enterprise_. When he's back to her, he's back to himself—his duty, his responsibility, she the silent partner accompanying him to far places, through loneliness, and yet her presence never eases the burden. He thinks now that it's heavier than ever before. There's only been one other time he's felt so alone on this ship, and that was when it was empty. It can't feel—_be_—so empty with only one person missing. It _can't_, and yet it is.

He's been out of sorts for days, unable to sleep, hardly to eat. There came a point when he didn't even bother fighting the intravenous feedings Bones insisted on. If it would get the man to shut up, _go away_, let me think, then so be it. Stick a tube in me. Give me food in my arm that I won't put down my mouth. Do it.

So he sat there with nourishment spilling through his veins, perched on the pleather padding of the biobed with his arms barring his chest, leaning back against the wall. He refused to even look at the doctor and ignored his halfhearted attempts at levity. He was too angry to care—didn't care what Bones saw anymore, didn't _care_ that he didn't understand.

He closed his eyes and set about thinking. He didn't know where to start, really. Telepathy had never been one of his strong suits, mostly because he wasn't a telepath. And though that was no fault of his, he couldn't get over the feeling that he was _doing it wrong_, but he knew at the same time that he didn't even know what he was doing; how could he possibly be doing it wrong, then? Still, he knew he was doing nothing right.

He began in the only way he knew how. _You want to talk to Spock. Alright, then try talking to him as if he were standing beside you. Ask him where he is, _report_, what's the situation? Keep up the mental dialogue. Maybe he can hear you. He was a touch telepath, right? Gifted at mental contact, even for a Vulcan. Sensitive mind. And sometimes he didn't even have to touch something to sense the gist of their thoughts, so maybe he senses this, wherever he is._

After awhile of talking to himself, he didn't really know where he was getting, if anywhere at all, but the doctor had a whole _list_ of places: irritable, restless, inefficient—it went on and on. Even when that normally soothing liquid was downed and the so-blue eyes waiting, simultaneously enraged and begging, he couldn't tell. He _couldn't_.

It wasn't that he didn't trust McCoy. He man had been through thick and thin with him, seen him split into his good and evil incarnations, for crying out loud! But he knew that he couldn't tell what he was attempting to do because McCoy would be forced to report it; he couldn't remain impartial about medical matters.

So he soldiered on—alone. It just wasn't in his nature to give up, regardless of difficulties. He would find Spock, end of question. Soon that voice would break through, dry and dripping quiet amusement like nothing had ever happened. Then he could tear down that wall of silence he'd built between himself and Bones, and stop feeling as though he didn't belong in that center chair, but instead concentrating on reaching Spock. He could always throw himself into it again—_harder_, more passionately, and where all other methods failed, Jim Kirk's passion usually generated results.

This time, it also generated a haul to Sickbay. He got the honor of being dragged by none other than the ship's CMO. And he knew what it was about, too. _Knew_, even before Bones opened his mouth. Knew it was perfectly possible that the reason Spock wasn't responding was because he was did. Did not believe it, and would not choose to.

All those times Spock had tried to say it was hopeless, that the odds were impossible, that he must be a casualty of the many, he had put his foot down. When Spock had been infected with pain-giving aliens that wrapped their tentacles tight around his spinal cord, he hadn't given in. If there wasn't a way, he didn't give in until he staff found him one or he made one. Even if Bones no longer believed, he would press on and make a way. After all, the doctor had been wrong before; he could be wrong again, wrong now. Bones had believed him to be really and truly dead when he disappeared in the Tholian Web, and even when Uhura saw his image, he thought she'd gone crazy. Spock had stayed to search for him despite all the _facts_, the logical evidence, despite McCoy telling him he was wrong, allowing emotions to taint his decisions—the ultimate insult, to a Vulcan.

If Spock could still have faith through that, cling to the spark of intuition Jim had tried to ignite in him, then he could have faith through this. It was the faith of a Vulcan that had saved his life, and that faith was too precious and he owed his life too many times over to it to abandon him now. It didn't matter which of Spock he was doing it for—friend or first officer, or even both. He wouldn't abandon him. Couldn't. It wasn't the type of man he was. He believed wholeheartedly all that Starfleet stuff that cadets in the Academy snorted at and mocked. He really believed in freedom and goodness and reaching out to discover new life-forms. He did. But he was also a man who believed in friendship, and in space, it was not to be taken lightly, but treasured because the next day, it could be gone, and now it was.

He refused to allow himself to think of the silence as permanent. No, it wasn't permanent. And even the silence _here_ wasn't complete. There was the gentle _bum-bump_, _bum-bump_ of the biobed's readouts very near his head and the chirping as the panel's lights lifted and rose in some pattern that he didn't know but that seemed very _right_, very _alive_. Why, then, did he feel so dead?

It was only in solitude that he allowed himself these moments of weakness as he did now, crossing his legs and leaning down to rest his head on his fists. The soft, comforting, known and unknown _bum-bump_ seemed suddenly identical to the little thumping at the very front of his head. Another headache, then. Another symptom of his exhaustion, depression, obsession . . . Those words had trapped him here, those labels that he knew weren't for him. This was not obsession; this was loyalty. This was no exhaustion; this was perseverance. This was not depression; this was having faith.

When had Bones become his enemy? He didn't need another enemy, not now. He already had a shadow-enemy, one who was the enemy by not being there, and yet what had happened was not his fault. But the blame was there, palpable anger, _real_. And what would Spock say? That he was human, that he could not help it? No. He had never used that excuse, not even for himself, so why would he accept it where his captain was concerned?

No, he must master this, as Spock had once spoken of doing. Master his blame, master the feelings of betrayal he felt towards McCoy, master it all so that he could focus on the true purpose. Perhaps he could turn evil into good. He had before, certainly. Many times what was meant to ail him was examined and hastily brandished in a new way to bring him strength. Ingenuity, creativity—all marks of a starship captain.

_All right, then, I'm alone here, solitary and not a soul to hear me or bother me. Tonight, I will find what I am seeking. It won't be fear, doubt, or even uncertainty; it will be a calling out in the darkness with the knowledge that you will be answered. Tonight I will get Spock back._

He had not even begun and he was already tired. But he mastered it, mastered himself, banished the pain in his head, shoved back his anger at being there in the first place. Forgot Bones' betrayal for the moment, his lost faith and the misunderstandings between them. Emptied himself. Only once the emotion had been cast away could he find Spock. How could he not have seen it before? He didn't know, but he knew that now that he understood, not more time could be wasted. The theory must be tested.

He took a breath that was steadying and sighing—both at once. He leaned his head back, beneath the lights that jumped above him, and called. It was the rawest kind of love—the persistent kind—taking the form of a blind, bold name.

_. . . Spock!_


End file.
